Snapchat to Access User's Offline Data

Capitalism at Its Finest – Snapchat to Access User's Offline Data to Bombard Them with Targeted Ad's

You must have probably heard about Snapchat. It is a mobile app that is used for image messaging, video chatting and instant messaging. This application was created by three former Stanford University students as their class project. Snapchat’s mobile phone app was initially released five years ago and is now available in twenty different languages. According to some analysts, Snapchat is worth a little less than $20 billion!

Like all other tech companies, e.g. Google, Facebook, and Twitter, Snapchat too refrained from displaying ads at first but now, following the footsteps of its peer companies, it has planned to serve targeted ads to the Snapchat app users. Like it or not, the decision is finalized and you will soon be seeing targeted ads in your app based on your offline data.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Snapchat has signed a deal with Oracle Data Cloud. Oracle Data Cloud will extract the offline data from the mobile phone apps of its users. This data will then be assessed by Snapchat and it will be decided which particular ads should be displayed to the users. Whether it will be of any use to the users of the app or not, one thing is absolutely clear that Snapchat will be raking in some crazy amounts of moolah generated from this marketing activity.

This step by Snapchat has also raised some privacy issues. Although, Oracle has made it clear to the authorities that it only saves the day for 180 days after which it is automatically cleared from its systems but there are concerns over offline data about which Oracle hasn’t yet disclosed any information. It is imperative to mention here that Snapchat is not the first to avail Oracle’s services. YouTube and Pinterest too have similar agreements with Oracle.

Many analysts also believe that this move by Snapchat is more strategic in nature. Snapchat’s IPO will be offered in March this year. The profit forecast and thus the valuation of the company has increased in value because now the ad sales have also made its way into the books of the company. This means that the stock price of the company will also rise in value and so the company will be able to raise more money through its IPO.

If you do not like to see these ads or find them annoying, fortunately, Snapchat have an option through which you can block them altogether. The process is quite straight forward but still, we will walk you through the steps to block the ads. Go to ‘settings’ tab in the Snapchat app and then click ‘manage preference’. Now click on ‘additional settings’ and then turn off the ‘Snap Audience Match’ option. Keep visiting our website for more updates on this story or other tech-related news.